DAN DARE NEVER HAD THESE PROBLEMS
I can only reflect that this modern wonderworld of high technology seems to be higher maintenance than having a former lap dancer for a mistress. (Something I have mercifully managed to avoid.) None of this was ever predicted in Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future.
And for those of you who don’t have a clue what I’m talking about Dan Dare POTF was a strip in a comic called The Eagle, set in the first decade of the 21st century, and, as a very small child who had just learned to read, (yes, there were printing presses back then) I was totally obsessed by it and wanted to be The Mekon. In that future now the Earth was happy, war was outlawed, the UN was in charge, everything was clean and ran on safe nuclear energy, and all humanity had to worry about was invasion by the evil Treens from Venus – led of course by The Mekon. (Start to get my drift?) Of course, rock & roll had never been invented so I couldn’t win ‘em all.

For more on D. Dare – http://www.dan-dare.org/

SWITCHING THE TOPIC JUST SLIGHTLY
The April 2005 edition of the Scientific American had an editorial that kinda says it all.

Okay, We Give Up
There's no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don't mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is turning over a new leaf, so there's no better time to say: you were right, and we were wrong. In retrospect, this magazine's coverage of socalled evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it. Where were the answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism? Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence. Moreover, we shamefully mistreated the Intelligent Design (ID) theorists by lumping them in with creationists. Creationists believe that God designed all life, and that's a somewhat religious idea. But ID theorists think that at unspecified times some unnamed superpowerful entity designed life, or maybe just some species, or maybe just some of the stuff in cells. That's what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn't get bogged down in details. Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to present everybody's ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories simply because they lack scientifically credible arguments or facts. Nor should we succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do. Indeed, if politicians or special-interest groups say things that seem untrue or misleading, our duty as journalists is to quote them without comment or contradiction. To do otherwise would be elitist and therefore wrong. In that spirit, we will end the practice of expressing our own views in this space: an editorial page is no place for opinions. Get ready for a new Scientific American. No more discussions of how science should inform policy. If the government commits blindly to building an anti-ICBM defense system that can't work as promised, that will waste tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars and imperil national security, you won't hear about it from us. If studies suggest that the administration's antipollution measures would actually increase the dangerous particulates that people breathe during the next two decades, that's not our concern. No more discussions of how policies affect science either, so what if the budget for the National Science Foundation is slashed? This magazine will be dedicated purely to science, fair and balanced science, and not just the science that scientists say is science. And it will start on April Fools' Day.
Okay, We Give Up – Matt Collins the Editors editors@sciam.com

OR, FROM ANOTHER ANGLE
"According to legend Odin hung from the tree of life for 3 days and nights to wrest the secrets of the runes from the Norns - losing an eye in the process. He must have been really pissed to discover you can buy them in Borders for $19.99 complete with a velveteen carrying bag."

MACUSERS
I know you all mean well when you tell me "Mick get a Mac", but if I hear it one more time, I will make like the sexblog ladies and suggest you all send me five bucks. (But I’d only keep the PC and spend the money on drugs.)

The secret word is Embattled